In a speech to the military in 1798, John Adams stated, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion… Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Put in simpler terms, Adams was asserting that the Constitution, and more generally, the United States, could not survive unless the people and those selected to represent the people were grounded in faith and morality. Once those two elements begin to slip away, Adams argued, the civil society is incapable of further growth and will begin to cave in on itself like a house of cards.

One of the most obvious examples of how America is slowly losing touch with the principles of faith and morality it was founded on is the left’s constant push to normalize the practice of abortion. They relentlessly try to desensitize the American people with false claims that a fetus is nothing more than a “clump of cells” that is not protected by the United States Constitution. They justify the practice of mercilessly ripping a baby out of the womb by arguing that they stand for a woman’s right to choose, and anyone who questions them is automatically deemed sexist or misogynistic. What they don’t understand is that pro-choice activists like Elizabeth Warren and pro-abortion facilities like Planned Parenthood are actually leading our country down a dark road, away from faith and morality and towards what will inevitably result in societal decay. (RELATED: The abortion business brings in nearly $1 billion per year.)

In July 2015, Ross Douthat published an article in the New York Times titled “Looking Away From Abortion.” In the article, Douthat references an essay written by physician Richard Selzer, who one day saw something rather unusual as he was walking through his neighborhood. A trash bag had fallen out of one of the passing garbage trucks and ripped open, spilling all of its contents onto the paved road. Selzer first thought he saw oversized baby birds coming out of the bag, but that wasn’t it. His next thought was that he was looking at rubber baby dolls – that wasn’t it either. Upon closer inspection, Selzer realized that what he was looking at was actually much more terrifying, like something out of a horror movie. Lying lifeless on the pavement were multiple tiny, naked aborted fetuses.

The local hospital director later tried to explain to Selzer that what he had seen was “not an everyday occurrence,” and that the tiny fetuses were just “mixed up with the other debris.”

Of course, the statements made by the local hospital director were nothing more than sad excuses to justify the practice of throwing aborted fetuses in a trash bag and shipping them off to a junk yard. The fact that this particular scenario is “not an everyday occurrence” does not make it any more acceptable than if it happened every day of every week of every year. Furthermore, mixed up in debris? Is that how a civil society treats and talks about the most innocent form of life? (RELATED: President Trump just banned federal funding of abortions)

God willing, there will come a day when the United States looks back on the practice of abortion and feels ashamed that such a gruesome procedure was ever considered to be morally acceptable. It may take decades or longer, especially considering the ongoing push from the progressives to not just keep abortion legal, but also normalize it across the country, but ultimately America needs to make a return to faith, virtue and morality. Because if the words of John Adams are true, our country only has a limited amount of time before we lose ourselves altogether.